


Sherlollipops - Gardening

by MizJoely



Series: 221 Sherlollipops [52]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Sherlolly - Freeform, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 07:45:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2573771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizJoely/pseuds/MizJoely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's got visitors, but why are his parents talking gardening with Molly Hooper in his flat?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sherlollipops - Gardening

“Oh, Sherlock loves gardening, has ever since he was a little boy!”

Sherlock winced and silently started to back away from the door to his flat as he heard his mother’s voice. Yes, of course he loved her, but there were times she could prattle on worse than Mrs. Hudson, to whom he assumed she was speaking.

He heard a deep chuckle – oh, goody, his father was here as well, surely he’d done nothing to deserve having his home unexpectedly invaded like this! Wasn’t it Mycroft’s turn to take them to the theater? Why weren’t they in Oklahoma, surely it was time for them to be in Oklahoma! “Yes, well, I wouldn’t say he still loves it, Violet; he certainly can’t have many chances to do much of it living here in London!”

“He helps me with my potted plants,” a third voice volunteered, and Sherlock froze with one foot about to descend the stairs.

Molly. What on earth was Molly Hooper doing in his flat with his parents? He considered just continuing down the stairs and back out the front door, but curiosity eventually drove him back to lurk behind the slightly ajar door, listening for all he was worth to the conversation going on inside.

“Oh, see, dear? I told you he’d find a way to keep his hand in!” his mother exclaimed happily. Sherlock rolled his eyes. Yes, he’d enjoyed mucking about in the flowerbeds at home when he’d been a child, but most children enjoyed getting dirty. Well, not Mycroft, of course, but there were times Sherlock was willing to swear that his elder brother had been born with a brolly in one hand and a disdainful sniff in his nose!

“Well, it’s just that my cat, Toby, tends to get at the plants and Sherlock helped me repot them a time or two when he was using my flat as a bolthole,” Molly hastened to explain. Good of her to set his parents straight; he did NOT ‘enjoy’ gardening. It was simply a matter of repaying Molly for her patience, for allowing him to take over her bedroom when he needed the space.

Of course, now that he thought about it, he would have happily shared said space with her, but of course she’d assumed he wanted to be alone. And then there was that idiot fiancé of hers to consider. Not that the man was a factor any longer, he thought smugly. It had only been a matter of time before Molly came to her senses and ditched ‘Meat Dagger’, leaving her free to…

To what? He shook his head; where was his mind drifting, and why wasn’t he paying attention to the familial trespassers in his flat? He scowled, firmly forcing his attention back on the conversation in his sitting room. His mother continued to prattle on about his supposed love of gardening, with his father offering the occasional comment and Molly laughing politely at the anecdotes they were sharing with her.

Wait, what exactly was going on here? Was it simply a matter of his parents passing the time by bragging about their favorite child, or was it something more? He hadn’t asked Molly over to help him with an experiment, hadn’t asked her to bring him body parts from the morgue… “Molly? Why are you here?” he exclaimed, bursting through the doors with a suspicious glance at his parents. “Did you invite her?” he demanded of his mother.

She raised an eyebrow and glared at him. “Sherlock,” his father said quickly. “Sorry to just pop in like this, but your mother…”

“His mother can speak for herself!” that worthy interrupted, turning her glare on her husband. “And yes, we invited Molly, Sherlock, or rather, I did.”

Sherlock darted a gaze over to his pathologist, who gave him a weak smile and a small wave. She was sitting on the sofa; his mother was next to her and his father was in John’s chair. 

“The Garden Show is this weekend,” his mother announced, and Sherlock groaned internally. “You promised, Sherlock. Don’t think I’ve forgotten!”

He plopped down on the sofa next to Molly, dropping his head dramatically onto the back and closing his eyes. “What if I have a case?” he asked, ignoring the whine that had crept into his voice.

“You promised.” His mother’s voice was utterly inflexible, and Sherlock knew when he’d been defeated.

He sat up, turned to face a very puzzled looking Molly and said in a rush, “Would you like to go to the Garden Show with me this weekend?”

Molly looked back at his mother, over to his father, and then straight at Sherlock. “Sorry, were you talking to me?”

“Of course I was talking to you!” he huffed, running one hand through his hair – and not missing how her eyes lingered on the motion. Was she enjoying the sight or wishing it was her own hand doing the ruffling? Ugh, perhaps John was right; did he actually have ‘feelings’ for Molly? Was this why his mother had insisted that he invite her along on the family outing his parents had forced upon him? “Well? Yes or no? Do you have plans, do you have to work, I don’t think your schedule was changed recently, was it? No, of course it wasn’t, I’d have seen it on your calendar…”

He was babbling. Deducing, but not in a controlled manner at all, no, he was absolutely babbling. Brilliant. He shut his mouth and glared at Molly as if this was all her fault. Which, technically, it was. If she wasn’t so bloody nice and good-natured and perceptive and discreet and understanding, if she just didn’t matter to him so bloody much… “Oh!” he exclaimed, interrupting whatever answer she’d been about to give him. “I see!”

“You see what?” Molly asked, still looking very confused – and slightly alarmed.

Sherlock grinned and took her hands in his. “Mum, Dad, do excuse us, please. My pathologist and I have a great deal of sorting out to do. And yes, we’ll be at the blasted Garden Show, see you on Friday, thanks for coming by, do see yourselves out, yes? Yes, bye!” He blasted the words out in a rapid monotone, but the last two words were practically sing-song as he felt a bubble of joy trying to burst through his chest like that ridiculous alien in that even more ridiculous movie John had forced him to watch once upon a time. Yes, the emotion felt exactly like that only less messy and fatal.

He barely noticed as his parents rose to their feet, barely listened as Molly stuttered out her confused apologies to them, but he did notice when his mother took him firmly by the ear and forced him to gazed up at her instead of at Molly’s much more interesting – and infinitely more attractive – face. “Don’t muck this up, Sherlock,” his mother ordered, glowering at him – or rather, trying to. Difficult to manage with the twinkle in her eye. “See you on Friday.” She dropped a kiss to his forehead and then she and his Dad were mercifully gone, leaving him alone with a still very confused-looking Molly.

“Sherlock, that was very rude!” she scolded him just as he opened his mouth to explain things to her. “Those were your parents, they’re lovely, why did you just kick them out of your flat?”

“Because much as my mother would have loved to watch, I didn’t want our first kiss to be in front of my parents!” he exclaimed, then leaned forward and planted his lips on hers.

She was shocked, obviously, but it didn’t take long for the kiss to grow on her. And Sherlock could see how very pleased his mother was when he and Molly joined her and Mycroft and their dad at the Garden Show that Friday – especially when Molly blushingly showed off her brand new engagement ring.

Sherlock Holmes might have been a late bloomer, but once love had taken root in his soul, it found very fertile ground to feed it indeed.


End file.
